It seems crazy. Jesus is saying these very provocative, in-your-face things, and yet crowds still follow him. He knows that he will soon give up everything he has and is, to die on the cross. No one else sees that coming. That is the cost that Jesus willingly pays, to bring us forgiveness and the promise of new life.
Discipleship is about learning to ‘do the hokey pokey’ and gradually to put our whole self in to this journey called life. It is about learning that our ‘little’ ideas of who we are, and how our life should go, have to die. Then we can accept the invitations to discover more of who we are. Then we can take up the offers of deeper connections.
There is a cost to this. The cost is that sometimes we have to do the hard work of coming to terms with what didn’t work in the past, or what is stopping us now being more settled and content. We may even go to others to get help with that. But as we work though our addictions, our compulsions, our fears and our mistakes, we discover that we have always been in God’s love, and that the journey to healing and acceptance is well worth it.
